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JosephThePoet

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Life is a Puzzle

Compare life to a chess game, a movie and a puzzle.

In a chess game you think the whole game through before making a single move. Continuously throughout the game, before making your next move, you think the game through to its conclusion. Life is like that. Before anything happened, everything was thought of. As things happen, the conclusion is still thought to. Nothing will happen that God hasn’t first thought of. Earth is just a piece of a pawn, as are the other worlds in this and other dimensions, in the game of life. Each individual, in their own world, is but one of the games pieces.

In a movie everyone acts out their own character part. In real life we all choose our own character. Sometimes we feel compelled to act a certain way in a given situation, because of our belief that others want us to act that way. Sometimes we bow to this feeling, or to other people’s wishes, when we would have preferred to have acted differently. We are all actors.

The lead markings from a pencil joining the numbered dots on a page, or the pieces of colored cardboard when joined together, create a picture. A puzzle is a combination of things that, when combined together, create the whole or finished product. If you combine the thinking of chess and the acting of movies, then you have the absolute knowledge of the puzzle of life.
 

FishFace

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Well, it all sounds very nice, but I don't think it means anything.

Philosophy is about knowledge. What knowledge do you have to offer us? Knowledge requires justification, so what justification do you have? Justification requires argument, so what arguments do you present?
 
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JosephThePoet

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You're arguing that we lack free will, not that there is a god. These are not mutually inclusive.
God want us to think, and to act responsibly with the knowledge we have.

God also allows us free will that allows for variances in what we may do, while all life still works towards His will for the future. He is generous and adjusts life’s variables to give us ample opportunity to choose to be a dutiful child, while still directing the course of all life to His will.

When we go through life we will have many choices to make, and our choices will show whether we choose to follow God’s laws or not. Once something is learned, we get to choose to act upon this new information under God’s directives or to turn our back on God and promote the will of our fellow man instead.

God is the Creator, we choose our own actions, we learn more as we grow, and at all times through life we choose to follow God or to carter to man by our many action choices.

At all times in our life we are making choices, and these choices are our chosen character which is the real proof of our souls. Deceiving man about our character is easy, but God sees everything we do and also knows why we make our choices.
 
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ForiUisitator

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Free will, if true, would need that the ego is a supernatural entity separated, but it is a part of this world. New findings in neuroscience show that what we call free will is just like any process: nothing is 100 percent certain about the future, the same is the case with the past, apparently.
"At all times in our life we are making choices, and these choices are our chosen character which is the real proof of our souls." - This is the proof of the ego-centric nature of the judeo-christian religions, in contrast with buddhism.
 
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elman

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Having free will to do what an angry deity demands of you isn't really free will in the strictest sense.

Imagine a man has a gun to your head and says,
"Do whatever you want but man, if you irritate me, I'll kill you." Is this free will?

Having free will to do what a loving deity desires that you do is really free will.
 
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peter22

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Elman

But you're really just going back to the 'gun to the head' scenario.

Allow me to paraphrase:

"Do what you like but unless you do exactly as I command, you will be denied eternal bliss."

It is therefore irrational not to do as God commands, assuming it is true. You therefore have choice removed from the equation thus you have no real free will. Maybe if God said,

"Do what you will but harm none."

you'd be fine, but that's Wicca, not Christianity.
 
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elman

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Christianity is love your neighbor---which means you cannot harm him. I repeat if I tell my child you will inherit my estate if you are a good father to your children, but if you desert them you will not inherit my estate, I have not removed the ability of my son to desert and abandon his children. I have added to the consequences of that choice, but adding to the consequences is not a gun to the head or a removal of free will. There is nothing wrong with there being consequences to our choices and if we chose to accept the consequences then fine, don't complain about getting the consequences.
 
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